Alistair McGowan is scheduled to become the new Emcee in the current West End production of Kander and Ebb's Cabaret, playing at the Lyric Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue.

McGowan will join the company April 21. He succeeds Julian Clary. He will join a cast that currently includes Amy Nuttall as Sally Bowles, Angela Richards as Fraulein Schneider and Barry James as Herr Schulz. The production is directed by Rufus Norris, who is currently directing a new production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses on Broadway for Roundabout Theatre Company at the American Airlines Theatre.

McGowan was last seen in the West End making a guest appearance in the title role of The Mikado at the Gielgud Theatre, and prior to that played Orin, the sadistic dentist, in Little Shop of Horrors that transferred from the Menier Chocolate Factory to the West End's Duke of York's and then the New Ambassadors. Other theatre work includes Art at Wyndham's and Merry Wives: The Musical for the RSC at Stratford-upon-Avon, but he is still best known for his four years as a television impressionist in "The Big Impression" on BBC1, which he wrote and co-starred in with Ronni Ancona, and won many awards including a BAFTA in 2003. As a stand-up comic, he has been a regular at the Comedy Store and on the Edinburgh Fringe. He has also performed as a stand-up on TV's "Tarbuck Live," "Des O'Connor," "Saturday Live," "The Clive James Show" and the 1996 "Royal Variety Show."